CHART Overview

CHART stands for Coordinated Highways Action Response Team. The CHART program is Maryland's entry into the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) arena.

This program started in the mid-1980s as the "Reach the Beach" initiative, focused on improving travel to and from Maryland's eastern shore.

The CHART program has become very successful that it is now a multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary program. Its activities have extended not just to the busy Baltimore-Washington Corridor, but into a statewide program.

The program is directed by the CHART Board, consisting of senior technical and operational personnel from the Maryland State Highway Administration, Maryland Transportation Authority, Maryland State Police, Federal Highway Administration, University of Maryland Center for Advanced Transportation Technology and various local governments. The board is chaired by the Chief Engineer of the State Highway Administration (SHA).

This comprehensive and advanced traffic management system is enhanced by a newly constructed state-of-the-art command and control center called the Statewide Operations Center (SOC).

The SOC is the "hub" of the CHART system, functioning 24 hours-a-day, seven days a week with satellite Traffic Operations Centers (TOCs) spread across the state to handle peak-period traffic.